For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
If you spend too much of your spare money, that which is above and beyond what you need to survive, on luxuries, you will never become rich. If you spend all of your spare money on pleasure, you will soon have no spare money.
I have often read this proverb and never understood it. This morning I hit upon something that finally makes sense of this proverb for me. If traitors and the wicked are not punished the righteous and the loyal will suffer. Those who are good desire to see no one hurt or made to feel bad. This leads them to desire not to punish anyone. However, if those who do wrong are not punished, are not made to suffer for their wrongdoing, then those who do no wrong will be made to suffer. If a society chooses not to punish those who do wrong, or worse, betray that society, then those who are honest and upright will suffer instead.
The Lord will give us victory over our enemies if we can say about them what the psalmist says here. If our enemies lay traps for us, even though we did them no wrong, God will defend us and cause them to fall into their own traps. God will bring defeat and destruction on those who accuse us of crimes of which we are completely unaware. We need not fear those who repay us evil for good. I will not let such things cause me to stop doing good for those I encounter. I will grieve and mourn for the illness and suffering of which I become aware. More than that, I will do whatever is within my power to alleviate the pain and suffering of others, even those I know will turn on me at the first opportunity. I will remember that I can pray for those who are suffering, even if I can do nothing else.
In today’s passage Paul tells us that a woman should wear some kind of covering on her head when she prays or prophecies and that a man should have no sort of covering on his head when he does the same. This is a controversial passage subject of much debate and interpretation. I understand some of the controversy and I do not fully understand, or follow, Paul’s logic supporting what he is saying. However, ultimately, I believe that what I said in the first sentence represents God’s will.
However, in the middle of this Paul says something which is often overlooked in the discussion over his teachings on head covering. Paul tells us that men and women are not independent of each other. God made mankind as male and female. Men need women and women need men. This is not a matter of sexual acts (although that is an element of the mutual need, it is far from the most important element and is far from universal). The first woman came from man and therefore women are dependent on men. On the other hand, every man since the first has come from a woman, therefore men are dependent upon women. This is true of people in general, but is a truth that we must never forget in the Church, the Body of Christ.
The first part of this passage is a joyous celebration and dedication of the completion of the walls around Jerusalem. The people were unified and praised God together for what He had done for them. Then Nehemiah needed to leave Jerusalem to fulfill the commitment he had made when he first obtained permission to come to Jerusalem and lead the rebuilding.
When he once more received permission to return to Jerusalem he discovered that the people had lost their unity before God. Some of the leaders, and some of the people, were choosing economic interests over faithfulness to God (one priest had rented out a Temple storage room, people were working and doing business on the Sabbath). He confronted his coreligionists who were working and doing business on the Sabbath. Then he discovered that some were getting around it by doing business with foreigners, so he put a stop to that. This was followed by the discovery that some of the returned exiles had married local women and were not raising their children as part of the community. There are aspects of this passage which trouble me, but the main theme is the importance of us worshiping God in unity.